Owner: JacksonFound - Things I Find. Abridged. URL:http://www.jacksonfound.com Join Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2007 15:55:18 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Authored by Adam Jackson, a San Francisco-based entrepreneur. JacksonFound is a collection of articles on new business models and innovation on the Internet. Site statistics:Click here
Review: MovableType 4 Beta 2007-06-05 17:02:25 I took the bait and tried out MovableType4 Beta, the “other” and “original” blog software that announced a new, open source and feature-rich version (4 beta) today. I’ve been a faithful (but not necessarily happy) WordPress user for several years now. I really thought WordPress would’ve been further along by now (more AJAX, better drag-drop features, better in-line image handling, etc). I downloaded and installed MT4 because of the releases this morning eluding to some of these rich UI features being included.
Summary:
The system is still written in Perl (CGI) so get ready to spend an hour installing additional Perl modules. I have a fairly recent version of XAMPP’s distro on my server which is usually sufficient for hosting LAMPP web apps … but not MT4.
You’ll have to add “Options +ExecCGI” to your Apache config and open up the permissions on all these CGI files before any of this works.
Perl Modules installed,
RememberTheMilk Now Works Great Offline and is the Best Task Manager Around 2007-06-05 13:55:30 I’ve been using the formerly online-only task manager at www.RememberTheMilk.com. It has a slick AJAX interface and great features that allow you to add tasks quickly, prioritize them, set recurring tasks, maintain multiple lists, integrate with Google apps, and so on.
My biggest problem with them was that the service would go down periodically, leaving me unable to update my list. The recent rollout of Google Gears, Google’s framework that allows web applications to operate in the absence of an Internet connection, and RTM’s integration with it has solved all my problems.
RTM now lets me switch between online and offline mode without disrupting the usefulness of the application.
I’ve been off Microsoft Outlook for about a year now (thanks to Google’s Domain Applications which gives you mail and calendar). Now the task management problem is solved as well. Nice job, RTM!
Read more:Works
, Great
, Offline
More Control Over Your Future Happiness Through Reinterpreting Your Life Story 2007-05-31 10:55:39 Interesting NYT article about the effect the story people tell themselves about their own lives and how it affects their futures. This Is Your Life (and How You Tell It) - New York Times
People seem to be a product of their own life story. It influences how they see themselves in past, present and future.
People tend to remember facts more accurately when they’re told in a story (unlike this post which is most certainly a list)
The research was conducted on mostly 30-somethings who were asked to tell their life stories in two hours.
Those with mood problems had mostly good stories but with very memorable bad aspects like the pride of a college graduation tainted with the cutting remark of a classmate.
“Generative adults” who are characterized by civic-mindedness and high energy levels associated larger traumas with wonderful recoveries. IE: being down about a bad divorce but bouncing back and finding a wonderful new mate.
Those who had reduced psycholo Read more:Control
, Future
Is America Tired of the Alpha Male? 2007-05-31 01:11:24 Compelling Newsweek article about how the pendulum has swung away from adoration of the alpha male and toward the beta male (presumably the opposite of the alpha). In Hollywood, Beta Males Best Alpha
Dogs - Newsweek Entertainment - MSNBC.com
Interesting premise: Hollywood is portraying more male heros and stars as “beta” males - guys who aren’t concerned with climbing the corporate latter the fastest, being the wealthiest or really even being competitive at all.
Take Jim Halpert from NBC’s “The Office” for example. “He’s a guy who isn’t concerned with status,” says Justin Spitzer, a writer for TV’s “The Office.” “He’s more concerned with getting through the day and not engaging in a pissing contest with the alpha males around him.”
Reasoning: The article make the argument that the country is tired of chest-pounding alpha males that have gone too far and are embarrassing us as a nation. Read more:America
Humans are Hard-Wired to be Generous 2007-05-31 00:26:56 Article from a US government study: Humans hard-wired to be generous
“Altruism is something that makes people feel good, lighting up a primitive part of the human brain that usually responds to food or sex.”
This was discovered in a study that is trying to find out if humans have some sort of built-in moral compass.
Read more:Wired
Why Every Domain Name You Can Think Of Is Gone 2007-05-31 00:08:57 Excellent article in the June, 2007 Business 2.0. Summary:
Kevin Ham is a domain hoarder in Canada with over 300,000 domains that run a combination of Google and Yahoo! ads for an estimated $70mm / year of revenue. He’s been collecting the domains since 2000 and has worked a deal many of the top level domain registrars to get first pick on expiring domains in exchange for paying 10x the regular price (still usually a massive bargain compared to some of their market values).
Interesting takeaways:
Ham has often taken advantage of little known 30-day return policies on domains. Get the domain, run ads on it, drop the ones that don’t perform well.
Was one of the first to buy up thousands of .cm domains - which are accessed when people misspell “.com”. Try beer.cm. Ads served by Yahoo!
To capture more misspellings, he’s working on Colombia (.co), Oman (.om), Niger (.ne), and Ethiopia (.et) . One must strike a deal with the government of the country in Read more:Why Every
, Domain Name
Quickly Add US Holidays to Google Calendar 2007-05-30 13:20:29 I don’t know why they don’t do this by default.
Click “Manage Calendar
s” on the left
Click “Add Calendar” Button
Click “Browse Calendars” tab
Click “Add Calendra” next to whichever country’s holidays you want.
Now how about a sweet blackberry Google
Calendar application like the Gmail for blackberry? Read more:Holidays
, Google Calendar
Solar Cell Makers Take a Hit 2007-05-30 12:06:45 I follow alternative energy stocks fairly closely. In particular, solar cell producers. Many of the large producers are based in China where the government today announced that they are increasing a key transaction fee investors must pay to do business in that country. That caused a 6.5% drop in China’s stock market and took a good bite (5-10%) out of most of these solar stocks.
In the interest of full disclosure, yes, I doubled-down on TSL (Trina Solar
).
Sector Snap: Solar Cell Makers
: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance
What A Free Cell Phone Service Might Look Like 2007-06-07 00:48:12 By Adam Jackon
Many services here in the US that were once expensive are now progressively becoming less so. Broadband Internet access seems to be in a race to the bottom, largely thanks for fierce competition between providers. Local and long distance phone service is much more affordable now thanks to competition from VOIP.
Conversely, some services that were once free or cheap are lately becoming more expensive. Television, for instance, used to be either free or very inexpensive for the average American household. Now its probably the largest monthly bill in the household behind the mortgage or rent payment. Admittedly, television has gotten a lot better over the years: more channels, better picture, DVR capabilities. I think the price increase is justified. Celular service, if not increasing in price, seems to be maintaining its premium pricing as time goes by. Sure we can TXT and PIX each other now, but does the service really need to be as expensive as it is?
Before we g Read more:Service
When China Isn’t Risky Enough: Investing In Colombia 2007-06-14 00:04:11 BusinessWeek reporter Roben Farzad recently traveled to Columbia to determine whether or not the “third tier” (globally speaking) economy there was ready for mainstream foreign direct investment and an “equity culture”. From an investment perspective, Columbia is the next frontier after the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China
). Its stock market has increased 14-fold since 2001 with a still modest total capitalization of $59 billion.
The one-time murder capital of the world and former home to infamous drug cartel Pablo Escobar, Medellín (pop 2.4mm) is reemerging as the commercial hub of the nation. The president, Alvaro Uribe, unlike most South American leftist leaders, sits right of center and has an approval rating above 60% in his now second term in office. His government is very much interested in attracting growth through foreign investment and understands that this can only be achieved by driving the paramilitary drug lords out of the urban Read more:Enough
, Investing
, Colombia
Still Watching TV From the Couch, but With Content Owners & Distributors Being Paid Differently 2007-06-20 03:01:26 Any time I get frustrated with how something works in my day-to-day life I start thinking about how some day, years from now, I won’t be afflicted by this incessant inconvenience. Television and online video watching is high on the list of things that can (and will) be done drastically better some day.
There is a lot of noise in this very interesting space right now but only a few devices and services that I think have a real chance of changing how the average American television viewer consumes content.
The Devices
TiVo makes the best DVR on the market but has priced itself out of orbit with its near-$1,000 hi-def unit. Their box is Internet-connected (sans-PC) and already has limited access to a handful of video podcasts. If they don’t dramatically drop the price, they’ll continue to lose market share. I own a standard-definition box of theirs and its currently unplugged and sitting in the closet. I didn’t pay $2,000 for a hi-definition plasma so I coul Read more:Watching
, Couch
, Content
, Owners
Making the Human Resource Supply Chain More Efficient … At A Profit 2007-07-23 22:45:20 It is always difficult for me to hear a story about massive unmet demand for something in the marketplace without exploring why its being under-served and finding creative (profitable) remedies. Especially when its a service that can easily and cheaply be provided. American Public Media’s Radio Show “Marketplace” ran an interesting piece today about how thousands of immigrants to the US are being turned away by English language training schools in New York City due to the classes being constantly booked. The students, from all corners of the world, are trying to learn English as quickly and efficiently as possible so they may become more productive members of the American economy as quickly as possible.
There’s a lot of political debate around immigration and what our “National Language” ought to be here in the US. I won’t be touching on any of that. I think there’s too much money to be made in satisfying these unmet demands.
Languag Read more:Resource
, Supply
, Chain
, hellip
, Human Resource
The Online Job Posting Business Model is Begging to be Disrupted 2007-09-26 02:48:37 I’m in the process of starting a new Internet business. We’re about to close a Series A round with several venture capital firms here in the Bay Area and are actively recruiting developers, database and product people. The labor market is tight in the Bay Area right now and the job boards are certainly cashing in.
Finding good and experienced talent is currently as challenging as ever. Here are the different ways I’ve found one can go about finding talented employees:
Post your job listing on a high-traffic board.
Pay a site like Dice.com to search their repository of technical resumes.
Troll the free resume repository on Craigslist
Cruise social networks like LinkedIn or Facebook and attempt to connect with and poach already employed people at other companies
Pay a head-hunter to bring you candidates. If you hire one you will pay them between 25-30% of the employee’s annual base salary and usually an additional fee on top of that. This really adds up for Read more:Posting
, Business
Sedo’s Domain Brokering Service Is A Waste 2007-10-17 00:10:42 Sedo.com, one of the many tools in the belt of today’s common-man-class domain hoarder, offers a service where, for $69, they will act as a broker on your behalf in a domain acquisition negotiation. They, of course, make no promises that they’ll be able to get the domain, but they say they’ll try. You pay $69 either way plus an additional commission if you end up getting the domain. If they get you the domain, you must of course use Sedo for the escrow (and pay those fees as well).
I paid the fee and commissioned them a couple of months ago to acquire a domain name for me. It took them 2 weeks to even start the process after I’d paid the fee with my credit card. After that the communications between myself and my Sedo representative had a minimum several-day (often up to several week) delay. The particular squatter that owned the domain I wanted lived in France. Before I paid the $69 I asked a Sedo representative if they’d be able to negoti Read more:Service
PHP Developers Wanted 2007-11-02 18:29:46 My startup here in San Francisco is looking for both junior and senior full-time web developers. Our application is on the LAMP stack. Here are the links to the job listings:
Fulltime Web Developer & Fulltime Senior PHP Web Developer
Read more:Developers
RecruiterWatch: A Place To Hunt the Head Hunters 2007-11-15 22:26:33 Here is a new business for you - I’ve even given you the tagline. Please, someone start this. With the pool of talented programmers running dry these days in San Francisco, I’ve resorted to working with recruiters to help find qualified and skilled candidates. The fees are hefty - 20-30% of the employee’s first year base salary plus many of them even want stock in the startup - sometimes as much as the employee they place gets! Recruiters are very easy to find these days. In fact, they seem to find you even when you’re explicitly not looking for one. For instance, Craigslist has a box you can check that says “please, no recruiters”, yet the majority of responses I get from the ad are from recruiters. I’ve decided to allow about some of these recruiters to send me resumes. After all, they all work on contingency so I only pay if they place someone.
Some recruiters will want to come out to your office and soak up hours of time chatting ab Read more:Place
, Hunters
Know Any Good MySQL DBA’s? We’re Hiring. 2007-11-27 12:53:21 We’re looking for a sharp and experienced MySQL
DBA to work in our San Francisco office full-time. The team is growing quickly and this will be our first DBA hire.
MySQL Database Administrator
Read more:Hiring
You May Want to Call American Express After Reading This 2008-01-24 22:42:33 I have a PO Box that receives all of my bills, etc. because for some reason I felt that USPS would be reliable in this domain where they have failed in so many others. When I visit the post office to fish mail out of this box every two weeks or so it is [...] Read more:American
, Express
, Reading
Social Investing and Pump-and-Dump 2.0 2008-04-01 23:32:30 For the better part of the last 10 years one of my hobbies has been sampling the best the Internet has had to offer in investment research tools. I’ve dabbled in developing my own technical analysis algorithms, have done a fair amount of day trading and have taken some more traditional long positions in [...] Read more:Social
, Investing
My Most Efficient (Yet Still Somewhat Inefficient) Digital Life Yet 2008-03-25 01:38:01 For many years, new technology and gadgets have often wasted more time than they’ve saved. Only recently have I been mildly satisfied with my latest entanglement of services and devices that I rely on to run daily life. Here is my current run-down.
Email: I use my own domain(s) for email and Google Apps [...] Read more:Digital
DriverSide Enters Public Beta Today 2008-06-03 03:50:01 DriverSide (www.driverside.com) is a new service that 2 good friends and former business partners, Jad Dunning and Trevor Traina, and I came up with a little over a year ago. Over the last 9 months or so we’ve raised some money, built an excellent team and created the first version of what we [...] Read more:Public Beta
, Today
, Public
The Gumball Rally 2008-08-07 19:10:40 Good friend and cofounder of DriverSide, Trevor Traina, and I are driving in the Gumball Rally
this year. We leave in 2 days for a road rally from San Francisco to LA to San Diego to Las Vegas then airlift to North Korea and on to 3 cities in China, ending in Beijing where we [...]
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